APP is recruiting two AmeriCorps*VISTAs to work with our Blueprints College Access Initiative. This is a great way to get real job experience in a supportive environment, work with high school students, and promote a college-going culture.
The job description is posted here and you can find out more about the AmeriCorps*VISTA program here.
Birmingham, AL- The U.S. Department of Education last week unveiled a new tool to help high schools better track how many students are completing federal financial aid forms.
School and local leaders can now track how many students in each high school across the country are submitting and completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) on the new FAFSA Completion Tool website, http://federalstudentaid.ed.gov/datacenter/fafsahs.html
Only 9,893 out of 49,510 Alabama high school seniors, or 19.98 percent, completed the FAFSA as of March 13, 2012. Previously, high schools estimated their FAFSA completion rate using self-reported surveys, which are typically unreliable.
Research shows a strong correlation between FAFSA completion and college enrollment.
“FAFSA completion helps students and their families access federal and most state financial support, including grants, scholarships, the lowest-cost student loans and work-study opportunities. The federal deadline for completing the FAFSA is June 30; however, many colleges’ priority deadlines have already passed,” said Kristina Scott, Executive Director of the Alabama Poverty Project.
Alabama’s median household income is $9,508 less than the national average. According to the Southern Education Foundation, 60 percent of that gap is due to Alabamians’ low educational attainment. For every dollar earned by individuals with bachelors degrees, high school dropouts only earn 32 cents and high school graduates only earn 51 cents.
College graduates elevate their personal earning capacity and bring nearly $1 million in spending power back to their local communities. Educational attainment is also a key factor in employers’ site location decisions, which in turn can create a healthier economy statewide.
The FAFSA Completion Tool will be updated every two weeks.
About the Alabama Poverty Project (APP):
Alabama is the nation’s third poorest state. Nearly 19 percent of Alabamians – and more than 27 percent of children – live below the poverty line. The Alabama Poverty Project (APP) is a nonprofit resource center that mobilizes Alabamians to reduce poverty via strategic partnerships with higher education institutions, community partners, policymakers and faith-based organizations. Founded in 1993, APP equips Alabamians to increase college access, fight hunger through learning and service, and one day end systemic poverty in Alabama. For more information, visit http://www.alabamapossible.org
WHAT: Financial Aid/FAFSA Help Night
WHEN: Tuesday, February 28, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Woodlawn United Methodist Church, 139 54th St N, Birmingham, AL 35212
BIRMINGHAM - Woodlawn High School students and their families will get hands-on help completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) on Tuesday, February 28, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Woodlawn United Methodist Church.
“The process of applying for and paying for college can seem complicated. This FAFSA completion event will help students and their family access federal and most state financial support, including grants, scholarships, the lowest-cost student loans and work-study opportunities. We want to turn Woodlawn students’ college dreams into reality,” said Kristina Scott, director of the Blueprints College Access Initiative.
The Woodlawn FAFSA Help Night is a free program to connect high school seniors and their families complete the FAFSA with expert advice from volunteer financial aid counselors from Birmingham-area postsecondary institutions, including the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Samford University, and Virginia College.
The FAFSA Help Night is co-sponsored by the Woodlawn High School Alumni Coalition, the Blueprints College Access Initiative, and Woodlawn United Methodist Church.
About the Blueprints College Access Initiative:
The Blueprints College Access Initiative equips 21st-century high school students to graduate from high school college- and career-ready by building partnerships with area higher education institutions and community organizations. Blueprints builds a college-going culture by demystifying the college-going process and connects high school students with an information-rich network of support student coaches and adults who can help them navigate the admissions process.
Blueprints is an initiative of the Alabama Poverty Project. Alabama has the third-highest poverty rate in the country, and educational attainment and income are closely related. According to the Census Bureau, college graduates’ median income is $46,931, while the median for workers with a high school diploma is just $27,381.
For more information, visit www.blueprintsalabama.org
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Dear Friends,
During 2011, faith and individual donors like you contributed $12,964 to the Alabama Poverty Project. That means we are nearly 75 percent of the way to our 2011 goal of $17,500. Thank you!
We are immensely grateful to partners like you. You inspire us and constantly remind us that, together, we have the power to end poverty and hunger in Alabama.
We hope that you had a chance to join us at one of our programs this year. The highlights included:
• The Blueprints College Access Initiative, which worked with 246 students at seven high schools across Alabama. Blueprints increases college access by supporting families in college and career planning, financial aid literacy, and ACT preparation. Thank you for helping equip students to pursue their college dreams.
• Celebrating the publication of APP Co-Founder Wayne Flynt‘s memoir, Keeping the Faith: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives. Wayne challenges and inspires us to keep fighting for a more just Alabama. Thank you for helping us keep his flame going.
• Alabama Possible Community Conversations, which bring together Alabamians to talk about our aspirations for our communities, the barriers we face in achieving those aspirations, and what actions individuals, leaders, and communities can take in turning possibilities into reality. Thank you for helping us listen to the dreams of everyday Alabamians.
• July’s Tornado Recovery Workshop and September’s Lifetime of Learning Conference, which brought together students, educators, and community partners to talk about poverty and long-term tornado recovery. Thank you for ensuring that the structural causes of poverty are addressed in rebuilding efforts.
We have just 5 more days to raise $4,536. Please ensure that we have the resources to continue our work together by making a contribution today.
Thank you,
Kristina Scott
Executive Director
Alabama Poverty Project
On August 23, 2011, APP had the immense pleasure of honoring our Co-Founder Wayne Flynt.
A sold-out crowd gathered at Woodlawn’s Woodrow Hall to celebrate the publication of Dr. Flynt’s memoir, Keeping the Faith: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives.
In his powerful testimony, Dr. Flynt captured the essence of his story.
“I am an historian. I was shaped by a new way of telling history, telling the story from bottom up instead of top down, trying to convince ordinary people who didn’t even know they had a history that history happens to everyone because everyone has origins, struggles, failures, and victories.
“For me that consisted of public activism and university outreach, or taking Alabama history off the campus and to the people, out of the sanitized classroom and into the cacophonous public square. “
Dr. Flynt is a Professor Emeritus of History at Auburn University and a prolific writer with 12 books to his name, including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Poor But Proud: Alabama’s Poor Whites.
Dr. Flynt challenged and inspired the crowd to take the long view of his work – and our work – to make Alabama a better, more just place for us all. As little as 50 years ago, Dr. Flynt said, that gathering of business leaders, activists, ministers, and just plain folk would never have taken place.
Imagine what can happen during the next 50 years.
Editorial Coverage on APP’s Evening in Honor of Wayne Flynt:
Jim Evans, Montgomery Advertiser, August 23, 2011, Alabama Voices: Flynt has been the state’s conscience
Bob Blalock, Birmingham News, August 28, 2011: Wayne Flynt keeps the faith, and provides it
Here’s where you come in-
We know Wayne Flynt has a huge fan club in Alabama, and we’d like this page to be a place where you can share why Wayne has had such an influence in your life. Please leave a note in the comments.
Along with their Advisor Dr. Humphrey Lee (top left), Phi Theta Kappa Officers Jerry Smith (top right) and Amy Beaver (bottom left) met with Community College Chancellor Dr. Freida Hill (bottom right) to ask for her support for their tuition reduction proposal.
After the April 27 tornadoes, Calhoun Community College Students Amy Beaver and Jerry Smith wanted to do something to address the long-term needs of tornado victims.
The two, who are both regional officers in the Phi Theta Kappa two-year honor society, met with other Alabama Phi Theta Kappa leaders at Shelton State a few days after the storms. The Phi Theta Kappa group toured Tuscaloosa and talked about what they were doing at home to meet tornado victims’ short-term needs.
They knew that was not enough.
“We had been doing volunteer services in our neighborhoods, and we decided we wanted to do something that would help in the long-run,” said Amy, a business management major at Calhoun Community College and Phi Theta Kappa Regional Vice President.
They decided to take action by asking that the Alabama Community College System reduce tuition for students who lost their homes and/or jobs. Educational attainment is closely linked to both economic security and resilience, and tuition costs can be a financial burden as students attempt to rebuild after natural disasters.
With the assistance of their Phi Theta Kappa Advisors, APP Volunteer Board Member and Northwest-Shoals Community College President Humphrey Lee and Athens State Transfer Coordinator Nora Lee, Amy and Jerry met with Community College System Chancellor Freida Hill in June. At that meeting, they had a chance to talk with Dr. Hill about their experiences and asked for her support.
When we asked if Amy and Jerry were nervous, Amy quickly replied, “Dr. Hill made us feel like we were having a normal every day conversation.”
After securing Dr. Hill’s backing, the next step was to appear in front of the Alabama State Board of Education, which sets tuition for the two-year college system.
At the board’s July meeting, the members unanimously agreed to cut tuition in half for students who lost their homes or jobs due to the storms.
Smith, a pre-engineering major at Calhoun and Alabama Region Phi Theta Kappa president, said that the experience would help him advocate in the future.
He “learned how to take the right path,” Smith said, and credits Dr. and Mrs. Lee with helping them understand the chain of command.
Dr. Lee said, “Students can be very powerful delivering a message, especially when their passion is based on an area of great need.”
Last Wednesday, nearly 70 people attended our Higher Education Alliance Summer Workshop and Annual Meeting to share resources and ideas on how to incorporate tornado recovery into students’ service-learning experiences.
Take-aways from the workshop included:
(1) Tornado Recovery Is Not a Sprint; It Is a Marathon: This is a 3-5 year process, and low-income individuals are particularly vulnerable to such disasters due to their place and type of residence, building construction, and social exclusion. And in addition to its physical impact, disasters also result in great psychological impact.
(2) Increase Awareness: Educate and involve your students, faculty, employees, co-workers, communities, and peers in relief and recovery.
(3) Involve Those Around You: Build disaster relief and recovery programs on your campuses utilizing outreach and service-learning.
(4) Form Partnerships and Relationships: With recovery groups, such as FEMA and Long-Term Recovery Committees. These are vitally important in creating a sustainable recovery.
(5) Network, Coordinate, and Collaborate: With other agencies and student, community, and faith organizations.
(6) Reflect, Reevaluate, and Reassess: Save time, expense, and energy while increasing efficiency and effectiveness.
(7) Prepare for the Future: Alabama is the sixth most tornado-prone state (and seventh most disaster-prone state).
Here is the story of the day in pictures:
The day kicks off at 10, and after our Executive Director Kristina Scott welcomes the crowd and presents “Repairing Alabama After the Tornadoes,” giving context to the day:
Dr. Brenda Phillips, Professor with the Center for the Study of Disasters and Extreme Events at Oklahoma State University, gives the keynote address, Disaster Learning and Service Learning, followed by Q&A:
After lunch, attendees gather to hear presentations from APP partners including:
Gus Heard-Hughes, Director of Initiatives of the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, discusses the CFGB’s work funding case managers for tornado victims and providing long-term recovery assistance in the wake of April 2011 tornadoes in his presentation, “Long-term Recovery Committees and Case Management”:
Wellon Bridgers and Kathryn Merritt, of The University Fellows Experience present “Transforming a Black Belt Experience into The Experience”:
Next, Phi Theta Kappa and Northwest-Shoals Community College (Phil Campbell) present “That’s Why It’s Called a Community College: Northwest-Shoals College and Phil Campbell”:
Finally, attendees conclude the workshop with small group discussions and reflection:
Thank you for the great feedback. Emily Myers of Auburn described the event as “cutting-edge,” Creston Lynch of the University of Alabama as “dynamic,” and Dennis Itson of Faulkner University as “an enhancement to our university’s programs.”
Our Hess Fellow David Olsen served as the program coordinator for the workshop. Many thanks to him and everyone else who came together to make this workshop a great success.
To learn more about Tornado Recovery, Vulnerable Populations, and what you can do to address these issues in your community check out these resources:
Poverty and Economic Security
Disaster Recovery
FEMA Resources
Case Management Resources
Presentations
A guest post from Hess Fellow David Olsen:
Hannah, Kristina and I recently attended the David Mathews Center’s “Making Community Decisions About Alabama’s Dropout Situation” at Auburn University Montgomery.
I learned that high school dropouts earn $10,000 less a year than high school graduates and $1,000,000 less over a lifetime than those with a bachelors degree.
And 75 percent of all state prison inmates dropped out of high school.
Hannah was there to present our Blueprints College Access Initiative along with our partner University of Montevallo Service-Learning Coordinator Dr. Hollie Cost, and I visited with other community-based programs targeting educational attainment.
Two words stood out throughout the day: engagement and innovation.
Most programs engage others to keep kids in schools. What surprised me was that they all do it differently.
Innovation was also a common theme. The problems facing our schools are not simple, so we must be creative and adapt to a new generation of students.
But for a moment, I doubted if all of this work actually made a difference.
Then Keynote Speaker Dr. Tommy Bice told us that Alabama had the nation’s fourth largest gain in graduation rates between 2002-2008.
This stuff does work.
This past Friday we took a trip to check out one of our Higher Education Partners, Wallace State University-Hanceville. We’ve continually heard of their academic, health and technical programs and were eager for a closer look.
Dr. Tomesa Smith, Vice President of Student Affairs, welcomed us and gave us a brief history of Wallace State. Afterward, Ms. Jennifer Hill, Director of Enrollment Management, gave us a campus tour while catching us up on Wallace State’s expansion of health professions and broadening of technical programs including culinary studies, dental hygiene and cosmetology.
The tour ended with a walk-through of the welding department. The program boasts a 100 percent employment rate for its graduates. Jim Thompson, the Welding Department Head, showed us around the facilities, pointing out various welding machinery, and he even demonstrated a water-powered materials cutter to make us some souvenirs!
Mr. Thompson informed us about the vast employment opportunities for a welder and about a national shortage of people seeking work in the welding professions. He also referenced a recent Alabama Construction Recruitment Institute (ACRI) commercial that aired during the Iron Bowl. The commercial, featuring Mike Rowe, stressed the importance of workforce development under the label of “Go Build Alabama.”
The Huntsville Times recently quoted the commercial and some ACRI statistics- “A third of Alabama’s skilled tradesmen are over 50, and they’re retiring fast,” Rowe said in the new PSA. “Guess who’s replacing them? No one.” According to the ACRI, for every four people retiring from the construction trades nationwide, only one is stepping up to take their place.
The highlight of the day was listening to Mr. Thompson describe acting out his life’s calling while helping others find theirs. He kept coming back to a central point he has experienced throughout his teaching career, “We take that person that had no skills…when they strike that first arc, it’s like a light switch came on,’This is what I’m supposed to be doing!’” Students find an interest they never knew they had. This spark serves as the motivation for these students to excel and perform on a higher level. Mr. Thompson recalled the passion and excitement some students had to learn as much about their trade as possible. He mentioned some of his past star students, such as Joey Foster, who won technical contests on a national level.
Thanks, Dr. Smith, Ms. Hill and Mr. Thompson for welcoming us to your campus!
Posted by T.C. McLemore
APP Board Member Carlissa Strong Cunningham knows firsthand what it means to live in poverty. During the late nineties, she was a divorced mother fighting to raising four kids on a combination of welfare, work and food stamps.
Above: Carlissa with husband Kevin Cunningham at our fall benefit
Carlissa remembers one year when she completed her tax return to find out that she and four kids had lived on just $2,000. Now, she is a senior financial analyst and is putting her oldest daughter through college.
How did she get there? Personal relationships. Education. And hard work.
Carlissa knew she needed a college degree to have the career she wanted. She took classes at Jefferson State Community College and earned associate’s degrees in business and accounting. After a lot of research and soul-searching, she decided to continue her studies at Samford University. It was tough, but “God made a way for me to go to Samford,” she says. With scholarships and financial aid, she was able to afford it.
Carlissa benefited from the relationships she made at Jeff State and Samford, where professors and other students provided encouragement. “I had members of the Samford football team babysitting for me in exchange for home-cooked meals,” she recalls. She founded a campus chapter of Students in Free Enterprise and participated in Diversity University, campus ministries, SGA and Phi Theta Kappa.
Carlissa’s struggles to make ends meet inspired her to earn a business degree so that she could help others become more financially literate. After graduation, she served as an Americorps VISTA with the New Hope Community Development Federal Credit Union, which eventually led to her first banking job.
Above: Carlissa at her first job post-graduation – image via Samford Belltower, 2004
Through it all, Carlissa says that she was most blessed by serving others. Even while busy with a full course load, four young children and numerous extracurricular activities, Carlissa found time to give back to others through ministry.
“I felt so lonely after my divorce,” Carlissa recalls. “God asked me – what did I miss about my husband? I like to cook. I loved cooking for my husband. When was I most lonely? At night. God said, ‘Cook for me. Take your light out into the night.’”
So Carlissa started taking huge home-cooked dinners out to Linn Park on Friday nights, where the hungry and homeless congregate. More than decade later, she’s still going back to lead worship and provide food and fellowship in the park with volunteers and members of her church, Harvest Community.
Above: Friday dinners at Linn Park are a beacon in the night
Along the way, more people have joined in. When she was a student, she was cooking for 100 people almost every Friday. Even with help from fellow students, “It got kind of exhausting.” Now, at least five churches from around Birmingham take turns bringing meals. With all the extra help, Carlissa cooks only four times a year – “always homemade, always from scratch!” She takes vacation days from work to be able to prepare the food the way she wants, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It’s a treat – it reminds them that they are loved, they are worthy. We always wear gloves, and practice good sanitation – I’m not going to serve them something I wouldn’t eat myself.” Even when she’s not cooking, she takes off work early to make it out to Friday evening dinner. In the summertime, she organizes people to distribute coolers of cold water during the week; in the winter, they bring hot cocoa, coats and blankets. Through relationships formed in this ministry, Carlissa and friends have helped people get their drivers’ licenses, medical care and other services.
Above: Carlissa, her family and Samford students serving dinner at Linn Park
What Carlissa enjoys most is the fellowship. “These people have stories,” she says, gesturing to the folks gathered for dinner. Some are old and ill, some have college degrees, some have jobs. Some she has known for years, and some she just met.
“It’s an awesome journey. I am always encouraged to be here. I just show up, and people are hugging on me, loving on me – it feels great.” And, she adds, “when you make a person feel welcome, feel at home, you can really say something to them.” But Carlissa says that she is the one who is most blessed by ministry: “You don’t do this for others. You do this because it blesses you.”
Carlissa recently married Kevin Cunningham and works as a Senior Financial Advisor at BBVA Compass Bank. Her oldest daughter is now a third-year student at Samford University.
Through her leadership as an APP board member, her relationship-based ministry and her personal story, Carlissa inspires us. We are thankful for her and others like her – people who show us that it is possible to end poverty, one relationship at a time!
This holiday season, we’re highlighting partners like Carlissa who show us what is really possible.
Did you know:
Your support allows us to continue our work mobilizing Alabamians to end poverty. We thank you for your partnership and generosity during this holiday season.
Posted by Robyn Hyden
